Football Coach Fired For Disciplining A Bully

So, I was looking through the local TV news websites this morning and this headline on the News 10 ABC webpage caught my attention, "Football coach fired after punishing child for allegedly bullying teammate". Really? The fact that stories like this even still exist makes me worry about where we are heading as a society.

If you know me at all you know I despise bullies. In many cases with children I can forgive children who may not know better, in the case of adults though I can not stand or justify the behavior. In this particular story the real bullies are the board of the Durham Middlefield Football league in Durham Connecticut.

The gist of the story is this, Todd Kennedy was a coach of a football team in the league made up of 4th through 6th graders including two of his sons. After hearing that a player on the team was bullying others, he  told the team that he does not tolerate bullies. The players then told him that it happened again. Kennedy once again said that he has a no tolerance policy on bullying and made the player in question run a few laps. For the record the player did dent that he was bullying.

After hearing about his actions the Board of the league asked Kennedy why he thought he thought he was qualified to handle a bullying situation, he answered because he is a Father. The Board then suspended him for his actions and eventually fired him.

Personally, I applaud the coach for doing the right thing and teaching kids that respect for others is not a choice but a responsibility. It is simply not right to intimidate, taunt, ridicule or hurt anyone because they are different or have differing views. With bullies showing might and dominance is always the way over showing respect or understanding.

In my eyes, in this case as in so many the person who stands up to a bully or tries to get them to understand how their actions effect other found themselves bullied in return.